


airplane mode.

by orphan_account



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Angst, Calling, Comfort, Drunk Dialing, F/M, Hurt, Suicidal Tendencies, Suicidal Thoughts, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 16:04:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18626572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: John gets a hold of Rook’s phone number when she ignores his attempts at ‘chatting’ on the radio.Chaos ensues.TL:DR - This is a mess. I’m a mess. Apologies in advance.





	1. One.

_** Tuesday. ** _

_8:37 P.M._

**Unknown Number:** Good evening, deputy.

_10:19 P.M._

**Filthy Sinner:** To you as well, stranger with my number.

_10:22 P.M_

**Unknown Number:** Who else could it be, darling? I don’t see anyone else in Hope County trying oh-so valiantly to scrub your soul clean of its sins.

_10:25 P.M_

**Filthy Sinner:** ... King gave you this number, didn’t he.

_10:27 P.M._

**Unknown Number:** I have my resources.

_10:32 P.M._

**Filthy Sinner:** I fucking bet you do. You also have a sister who enjoys plying people with un-fucking-real psychedelics. And I have a best-fucking-friend who’s into that, apparently.

_10:35 P.M._

**Unknown Number:** Language, deputy. Must we add ‘profane’ to your list of sins?

_10:37 P.M_

**Filthy Sinner:** Sweetheart, your little tattoo gun couldn’t handle the profanities that come out of this mouth.

_10:38 P.M._

**Unknown Number:** Is that a challenge, deputy?

_10:43 P.M_

**Filthy Sinner:** No, baptist - it’s an invitation.

•

_**John Seed changed a contact [Filthy Sinner — > PRIDE]** _

•

**_Rook changed a contact [Unknown Number — > Pretty Boy]_ **


	2. Two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This takes place after the fic “john’s belated breakfast”, in case you’re wondering about the ‘sleepover’ that these dorks are talking about.

** _Friday_ **

_11:15 P.M_

**PRIDE:** What. Is. This.

_11:17 P.M._

**Pretty Boy:** Do you not like it?

_11:20 P.M._

**PRIDE:** Pretty Boy, these cost $10,000.

_11:22 P.M._

**Pretty Boy:** No, no, no - the knock-off’s cost $10,000. The real ones are worth every extra penny.

_11:25 P.M._

**PRIDE:** Is this a bribe? Don’t want me gossiping about our little sleepover? Because pillow talk’ll always stay between us, baby.

_11:27 P.M._

**Pretty Boy:** You say always… Does that mean we’ll have more of these ‘sleepovers’?

_11:35 P.M._

**Pretty Boy:** Deputy?

_11:48 P.M._

**Pretty Boy:** Teasing is just cruel.

_12:03 A.M._

**PRIDE:** Rapunzel, Rapunzel - let down your fuckin’ window latch.

•

That morning, when John wakes - alone, once again - the watch is on his nightstand, in the box and everything, without as much as a fingerprint, with a little note beside it.

_‘Thanks, but won’t be needing it. I’ll always make time for you.’ - R._

•

**_John Seed changed a contact [PRIDE —— > Rook]_ **

•

**_Rook changed a contact [Pretty Boy — > Prince Charming]_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you’re wondering, John bought Rook a gold Rolex with in-laid diamonds. 
> 
> Yeah.
> 
> This boy is t h a t extra.


	3. Three.

**_ Friday. _ **

_2:43 A.M._

_“God, your ass is fucking unreal in those jeans.”_

John freezes as her voice spills through his phone speaker, as if every muscle in his body has been doused in frigid water, leaving him shivering and rigid.

“... Deputy?”

 _“’S not fair,”_ Rook whines, like a child who didn’t get dessert, even after eating their vegetables.

“What’s not fair, darling?”

_“... Your eyes.”_

“My... My eyes?”

_“You really have no idea how beautiful you are, do you?”_

That takes him off-guard, his breath catching in his throat so quickly that he chokes.

_*** “Eyes blue, like the Atlantic. I’m going down, like the Titanic...”** _

“Deputy, how much have you had to drink?”

_“Enough to take down half of your brother’s little toy soldiers.”_

Rook laughs, punctuating the statement with a hearty swig of whatever bottle she’s brandishing.

He doesn’t doubt it.

It takes a gratuitous amount of Bliss for the effects to actually take hold of her system.

Though he can’t confirm it, he’s sure that the training she’d endured from childhood had made her metabolism ten times faster than average.

“Where are you, Deputy?”

_“Fuck if I know. Left the trailer park ‘bout an hour ago. Me, Sharky n’ Hurk were playin’ a lil’ drinkin’ game. Sharky didn’t last an hour. Cute lil’ pyro. Took Hurk a while longer to go down - big boy can hold his liquor. But, in the end, I was the victor! To the victor go the spoils - the spoils being the greatest moonshine to grace the face of the earth.”_

“Rook, where are you?”

_“Baby Blue, I already told you—“_

“You’re in the middle of the Montana wilderness, intoxicated to the point of slurred speech and hysteria, and I doubt you can tell your rifle from your ass. Give. Me. Coordinates.”

_“... Rude.”_

The dial tone reaches his ears, and with it, John’s stomach drops through lines of his hardwood floor to the center of the earth.

•

**_ Monday. _ **

[15 missed calls, 48 unread messages]

_05:03 P.M._

**Prince Charming:** How long are you going to ignore me?

_07:38 P.M._

**Prince Charming:** You’re being a child.

_09:17 P.M._

**Prince Charming:** Rook, answer me right now.

_11:52 P.M._

**Prince Charming:** ... I’m worried about you.

_01:49 A.M._

**Prince Charming:** Please... Just... Tell me you’re okay.

•

_04:45 A.M._

**Rook:** You’re cute when you care.

_04:46 A.M._

**Prince Charming:** _WHERE ARE YOU?!_

•

“Hello, handsome,” she smiles, drenched in blood, coated in grime, painted with bruises.

John snatches her by the lapels of her jacket, yanks her inside.

“’S not mine,” Rook huffs weakly as John checks her over, frantically.

They don’t make it to the bedroom.

John eases her down on the sofa in the living room, pushing her (damned) denim jacket down her shoulders, tugging her shirt off, looking for any sign of cuts, bullets or the like.

What he finds makes his chest ache, nausea simmering in his throat, the dark hue of bruises tainting her skin along her ribs and stomach.

Likely from doing stupid stunts like jumping off rooftops, parachuting out of burning planes, sneaking up on heavily-armed brutes—

“I’m okay, John - I’m okay—“

He kisses her quiet, iron pouring across his palate, making him moan and snarl simultaneously.

“Three days,” he growls into her mouth.

“Lost track of time.”

Rook isn’t fazed, tangling her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, trying to separate what little distance remained, but John refuses to be so easily swayed, days after not hearing from her, just to knock at his door with those gorgeous fucking eyes and that lopsided smile and the sanctuary of her presence.

“You promised you’d be careful.”

John’s voice is delving into territory so low, so deep that he isn’t sure it’s decipherable, but when a shiver unfurls down her spine and her pupils dilate to the point that the black absolves the topaz of her irises, he thinks he could be speaking in tongues and she wouldn’t notice.

Just want more.

Such a greedy little thing.

He’d be a liar if he said he wasn’t, too.

“I was!” Rook insists, but it gives way to a hiss as his fingers prod at her ribs.

“Broken… They’re broken,” John whispers, like the words themselves are too heavy for his tongue, the hot and heavy air evaporating as fast as it’d surfaced, breaking into molecules of anxiety, atoms of fear.

“Baby Blue, they don’t hurt. Honest. You know I’d tell you if— ow, ow, ow— quit pressing on ‘em!”

“You said they don’t hurt,” John counters icily, though the worry from before threatens to bubble to the surface, clouds his judgment because what if she had internal bleeding, or if the rib was on the verge of puncturing a lung, or if they healed the wrong way, or—

“They don’t when my sadistic boyfriend isn’t playing them like a piano,” she huffs, catching his fingers between hers, stopping his further examination.

The word ‘boyfriend’ catches in his mind, evoking a hum of pleasure, satisfaction in the back of his skull, heat pooling in his belly.

“The only time you get hurt is when you’re protecting your friends,” John spits the word out like acid, because it is.

She doesn’t need anyone but him, doesn’t she?

Can’t he be enough?

What does he have to do for her to realize that he’s all she needs?

He pauses long enough for her to tangle their fingers together, drawing his attention away from the fractured bones to her face - exhausted, but as gorgeous as the day he’d first laid eyes on her.

“I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. I just got you...”

His voice cracks, tears blurring his vision, throat burning with the threat of sobs at the mere thought of her being injured badly, let alone… let alone…

“I’m not going anywhere, John,” Rook kisses his knuckles.

•

**_John Seed changed a contact [Rook — > Darling]_ **

•

**_Rook changed a contact [Prince Charming — > Baby Blue]_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * lyrics borrowed by the lovely Ollie MN, a wondrously talented lad on YouTube and one of the legends of the historical, legendary app known as, “Vine”. Give him a listen. He’s a darling.


	4. Four.

**_Sunday._ **

_11:43 P.M._

**Darling:** Care to explain why I have over 300 text messages from one incredibly tenacious baptist?

_11:44 P.M._

**Baby Blue:** Well, seeing as how you’ve been ignoring me for the last week—

_11:45 P.M._

**Darling:** Because I have things to do around the county, and though you’re at the top of the list more often than not, you’re a bit far away right now. Last thing I need is such a beautiful distraction.

_11:47 P.M._

**_[Baby Blue sent an image to Darling]_ **

_11:49 P.M_.

 **Darling:** Fucking Christ, John.

_11:51 P.M._

**Baby Blue:** Such a filthy mouth.

_11:55 P.M._

**Darling:** Bet you’re just aching to cleanse my palate, huh?

_11:57 P.M._

**_[Baby Blue sent an image to Darling]_ **

_12:00 A.M._

**_[Baby Blue sent an image to Darling]_ **

_12:03 A.M._

**_[Baby Blue sent an image to Darling]_ **

_12:05 A.M._

**Darling:** You fucking tease.

_12:07 A.M._

**Baby Blue:** I give and give, darling - but I’ve yet to receive.

_12:15 A.M._

**Darling:** Do you really think you deserve anything, sending me such delicious pictures, knowing that I can’t have a taste for the next twelve days?

_12:17 A.M._

**Baby Blue:** You could always come home early. I’ll go get you, right now. Just give me your location.

_12:20 A.M._

**Darling:** You know exactly where I am and exactly who I’m with. Jacob would skin the both of us alive and string our hides above his compound if I left early. Even if he didn’t, we’d end up dead in a drainage ditch trying to join the mile-high club.

_12:22 A.M._

**Baby Blue:** You doubt my flight skills?

_12:25 A.M._

**Darling:** No, baby - I doubt my self-restraint. Do you know how gorgeous you are when you’re in your element? Wouldn’t be able to keep to myself. Don’t know what I’d get on you first - my hands or my mouth. Couldn’t forgive myself if I sent us into a downward spiral going down on you.

_12:27 A.M._

**Baby Blue:** Rook, you’re not helping.

_12:29 A.M._

**Darling:** You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? Christening the cockpit with my lips around you?

_12:35 A.M._

**_[Darling has sent a voice message]_ **

_“Come for me, sweetheart.”_

John does with a strangled cry of her name.

_12:37 A.M._

**Darling:** You know I’d never leave my baby boy high and dry. Sleep tight, lover.

John falls asleep with her voice in his ears and a doped-out smile across his face.


	5. Five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T r i g g e r W a r n i n g . 
> 
> Shit gets dark here, folks. Suicidal thoughts, hints at suicidal tendencies, mentions of less-than-practical games of Russian Roulette. 
> 
> Read with caution.

John thought he’d imagined his phone going off, was so exhausted that when it vibrated against his night table, he did little more than roll over in his sleep.

But then there’s the ping of a notification, the caller had left a voicemail, so John curses softly and fumbles for the device.

He’d been expecting Joseph or Jacob to ask him to call him back immediately.

Because Rook rarely called him — she said she’d take texting over talking any day of the week.

The voicemail that reaches his ears has terror flooding through his veins with each and every passing word.

•

_“You ever miss that kid, King?_

_Fuck, I miss him to pieces._

_Today makes it eight years..._

_Sometimes, I see bits of him in the people up here._

_I can even see bits of him in the Seeds, believe it or not._

_Wanting to help anyone and everyone he can, even if he loses bits of himself?_

_Joseph._

_Determination and tenacity, a keen eye for perfection, absolutely no tolerance for failure, especially his own?_

_Jacob._

_Loss of innocence, abused mercilessly, so desperate to please and be loved..._

_John._

_They aren’t bad people, King. Life is just fucking cruel. They acclimated accordingly._

_Fuck, King. Shoulda offed myself before he did. World lost one of the few pure souls to ever roam the earth._

_..._

_Eating my gun sounds sorta appetizing right now._

_..._

_G’night, King.”_

•

John flies into a frenzy, calls Rook again and again, leaves desperate voicemails in her inbox, each one more broken than the last, until the fucking thing is full and John comes dangerously close to breaking his phone in half.

He tells his men that they wouldn’t rest until she’d been found.

A few hours later, he’s able to trace Rook’s phone, finds her in a dilapidated cabin, a revolver loosely grasped in her fingers and a dark pool soaking into the floorboards around her head, blending against the mahogany, the blood in his veins turning to ice.

He sags against the door, his breath too harsh in his nose, scraping his lungs, stifling the scream that’s clawing at his throat.

When he approaches her limp form, shaky legs and tears brimming in his eyes, he notices the broken bottle of bourbon by her head.

Bourbon.

That wasn’t blood, it was _bourbon._

From the looks of the remains littering the room, Rook’d consumed about a cellar’s worth, but when John crumbles to his knees beside her, trembling fingers searching for any sign of life, he lets out a relieved, broken sob at the pulse that thuds - soft, quiet, unassuming - and brings her to his chest, crying earnestly into her neck.

•

Rook doesn’t wake up until the next day, with a raging headache and barren throat, with John coiled around her like a boy clutching his teddy bear, face tucked against her throat, labored breath puffing against her neck, shivers licking up her spine.

She can’t remember much of anything about the previous night, besides finding a cabin to bunker down in and stumbling across the treasure trove of bourbon (her poison was whiskey, but after the last few weeks of sobriety, she’d gulp down three cases of cough syrup without any complaint).

Rook barely shifts, the muscles in her back and shoulders sore from being in one position for too long, but John blinks awake instantaneously.

And once he’s fully awake, he’s livid.

And Rook? Rook can deal with livid. What she can’t deal with is how that anger morphs into _despair._

How John’s hands change from fingers boring holes into her biceps to trembling arms clutching her waist.

How scathing words about stupidity and selfishness devolve into unintelligible sobs about horrifying him, gutting him, destroying him.

How his holier-than-thou speech about her (evidently) attempted suicide bleeds into a teary confession about his fear of her leaving him - how could you do such a thing, how could you abandon me, how could you ruin me like that?

That’s when blurry bits come back.

The revolver, the Russian Roulette, the voicemail.

Rook’s always had suicidal thoughts, but she’s never acted on them, never planned to, and last night was no exception.

The only problem about getting shitfaced is that it makes her tongue loose and her emotions raw.

When this happens, she dials King, because he’s the only person who can relate.

Rook doesn’t need him to talk her down from the ledge because she isn’t going to jump, just sit and let her legs dangle off the edge, but it’s nice to have someone to chat with when she’s staring down into the abyss.

Because sometimes, the abyss stares back.

Looks like she’d misdialed last night.

Rook doesn’t have the heart to tell him that she’s been playing Russian Roulette as a pastime since she’d first learned how to hold a revolver.

She flinches when John wails that the next shot would’ve killed her, that he’d found her in a pool of bourbon, that he thought it was blood, how his life would’ve ended the second she’d taken hers.

“John, I wasn’t going to—“

 _“Don’t lie to me!”_ He hisses, but it’s difficult to see him as a threatening figure with the tears sluicing down his cheeks.

“I wasn’t. I’m not. I wouldn’t leave you like that.”

“You won’t leave me _ever,”_ John seethes, his eyes piercing so deep that her soul wilts, that she can’t keep his gaze because she can’t make a promise she can’t keep.

He isn’t having any of it, takes hold of her cheeks and forces her to look at him.

“You can’t leave me. _You can’t.”_

Rook rests her bandaged palms (when had she cut them?) above his, brushing her thumbs above elegantly inked skin, desperate to give him any relief she can.

“I won’t. I won’t, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

John isn’t appeased by this, butting their foreheads together in an action that would’ve been painful - skulls clacking together like a couple of Newton Balls - if the look in his eyes wasn’t so heart-wrenchingly agonizing that it made her chest physically ache.

“Promise me.”

Rook doesn’t hesitate, weaves their fingers together, feels the need to revere these hands that had healed her with everything she’s got, every ounce of strength he’d given back to her, every bit of life he makes her want to live.

“I promise.”

“Promise you’ll come to me when you have those thoughts again.”

This is when Rook falters.

“John...”

He’s merciless, lips curling over his teeth in a feral snarl that has Rook thinking of a bloodthirsty predator. Except, this particular animal isn’t out for blood, but the precise opposite.

_“Promise me.”_

It isn’t the sharp hiss that stuns Rook - it’s the tears pooling in those beautiful eyes, the eyes that have witnessed so much bloodshed, pain, loss.

Rook opens her mouth, only for words to fail her and her voice to die before it had materialized in her throat.

For the first time in a long time, she’s at a loss for words.

But when those tears overflow, the dam bursting and his heart threatening to rupture right behind it, Rook chokes on a breath - such raw emotion, John’s feelings spilling out of him like a cascade of visceral despair - she fights for the words, cradles his cheeks in her hands, kisses the hot tears trailing salty tracks down his face.

“I promise.”


End file.
